//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Ghost Town 
// Story: Facing the Future 
// by RuinQueenofOblivion 
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I was there in those early days back when the Three Founders got together and helped shape the future of our part of America. I was there during the founding of the Settlement, I remember everything that happened after with the Great Schism and the war that followed.

But you don't know my story, maybe its for the best that I was mostly forgotten by the history books of Ponies and Zebras alike. There are a few Zencori that still tell my tale, but there's too much of an argument over exactly how I fit into their historical canon so I get left out of the tale of the Three Founders.

Who am I then you may ask, I'm the pony that started it all. Sure I'm not the one who founded New Atlanta, but if it wasn't for me things would've been a lot different in Georgia, for good and for bad.

So when President Charm asked me to write this story I wasn't really sure what to make of it. There's a lot of history that even Haven hasn't been able to preserve all the way, one such case is the days leading up to the founding of New Atlanta, and its time to change that.

My name is Charlotte Williams, but everypony calls me Charlie, and this is the story of how a waitress from a small town in Georgia changed the future of nations.


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My story, like most ponies who weren't born like that, starts on May 22nd, 2015 AD by the old calendar, or 0 BE if you want to be technical. I was just getting off work at the Varsity in Atlanta and made it back home, it was a pretty ordinary day all things considered.

Lately though I hadn't been feeling well, I kept throwing up on occasion and my period was late that month. I didn't think that much of it to be honest, at least not right away. My boyfriend Jake said I should take a pregnancy test just in case, but I honestly wasn't sure.

I had set up an appointment with my doctor for the next day at least, maybe then we'd put this whole thing to rest. In the meantime though, I just wanted to get some sleep, I had been working pretty much all day and wanted to just relax and get some sleep.

I was about to lay down when the phone rang, it was Jake's number he was on a trip to New York at the moment so he wasn't even in town.

"Hey honey, how's it going?" I said as I answered the phone.

"Good, good, I'm just getting into my hotel room now," Jake said from the other end of the line. "Did you do what I suggested?"

"Jake honey, I don't think I'm pregnant, its probably nothing," I said with a shake of my head. "Look, I got an appointment with Doctor Monroe tomorrow, she'll clear this whole thing up I promise."

"If you really think so, just be careful okay?" Jake said with a sigh, it was clear he wasn't sure why I was being so stubborn about the whole thing. "Promise you'll call me tomorrow, I don't want you to hold me in suspense much longer."

I just laughed a little, I loved Jake but sometimes he had a tendency to overreact, this was probably one of those cases I just didn't want to worry him.

"I promise, first thing after I get out of Doctor Monroe's office I'll call you," I said as I tried to reassure him, I don't know why he was being like this but I wasn't going to try and talk him out of it. "I love you, I'll talk to you tomorrow okay?"

"Okay," Jake finally said. "I love you too, sleep well alright?"

"You too," I said with a smile as I hung up the phone and sat down on my bed, I kicked off my shoes and threw off my clothes before I laid down and fell asleep.


00000


When I woke up again something felt, wrong. The world around me felt bigger somehow, like everything had grown, or I had shrunk. It took me a moment to realize that I wasn't even on my bed anymore, there wasn't much of a bed left to speak of, it was kind of rotten.

"What the..." I said with a groan as I tried to get up only to fall forward onto my hands... or what should've been my hands.

My arms, or what used to be my arms at least, ended in what looked like horse hooves. I had hooves, I had actual freakin' hooves, how was that even possible? There was a dirty looking mirror and I brushed off some of the dust as best I could and I froze.

Staring back at me was an orange horse-like creature with splotches of red on its body. The weirdest thing though was my horn, yeah I had an actual horn sticking out of my forehead.

I did the logical thing at that point, I screamed my head off.

When I finally calmed down I took stock of my new body, I was fairly small as far as horses go so maybe I was a pony instead of a horse. That didn't explain the horn though, it kind of reminded me of one of those things Narwhals have only it was on a horse instead of a whale. I guess that made me a Unicorn, an actual honest to goodness Unicorn.

I had no idea exactly what to make of that, was it possible that there were more like me out there somewhere? Did everyone on Earth turn into a horse thing or was it just me?

"Okay Charlie, you're in the body of some sort of small horse creature and you have no idea what's going on," I said out loud to myself. "You're probably just dreaming, yeah, that's it, you're going to wake up in a few minutes and find yourself back in your apartment waiting for your boyfriend to get back home. Yeah, its all just a crazy dream, there's no such thing as Unicorns and people don't get turned into small horses, yep... you're just dreaming, that's all."

I looked out the window at the city outside, it was quiet... almost too quiet. It was like the entire city had gone quiet, there were no cars moving on the street outside or even the sounds of life, it was as if the entire city was a ghost town.

I sat back on my haunches, maybe if I waited long enough I'd wake up from this weird dream. I even tried pinching, or well more punching myself to try and wake up, nope, nothing.

It looked like I was going to have to actually figure out how to survive out there, well that figured really. I was more worried than anything else.

I just had to figure out how I was going to get the door open.


00000


Luckily it had been so long that the door was rotting so I was able to get it open pretty easily. I had no idea exactly what I was going to do at this point, but the first thing that came to mind was getting food, if I was going to be stuck here for a long time I needed to get some food.

The streets were still quiet and empty as I made my way out of the building and along the street. It was weird, I didn't like it but I felt like I needed to find some sort of sign of life.

Was I going to be alone for the rest of my life?

I didn't have time to dwell on that, the first goal was going to be to get to the nearest grocery store, which would probably be the Publix on Piedmont. I looked up at the sky, it was pretty grey and for that matter it was actually pretty cold, that suggested it was probably closer to winter right now.

Weird, before all of this it had been May, what was going on? How long had it been since I had gone to bed? A few months or maybe years? I really had no idea, but that was something I didn't have time to dwell on right now. I headed along North Avenue, that at least would get me to the Publix, hopefully I'd be able to find something there that was still good to eat.

It felt like I was in one of those old horror movies about the last survivors in a city or something, was some sort of monster going to jump out at me and try and eat me or something?

Or since I was the one who had been changed into a pony creature, was I maybe the monster in this situation? That seemed silly but I had no idea.

I took a deep breath, I was becoming much more aware of my new senses as a pony and my sense of smell in particular was stronger than it had been before. I swear I actually smelled some things in the city that were, not exactly human, but I don't really know what it was, which worries me all of a sudden.

Was it possible that there were animals in the city? There was Zoo Atlanta, I had no idea what may have happened to it but it was certainly possible that animals had somehow escaped since, whatever happened here. There was a distinct lack of human habitation though, or pony habitation for that matter, what was the difference? I was starting to get a bit worried, was it even possible I was the only sapient creature left on Earth?

I didn't particularly enjoy that thought, I was afraid that it might be true though.

There was something else, I was starting to get a strange new sense, it was as if I was becoming more aware of my body, but something about it was really weird. I didn't quite know what it was yet, but I didn't have a whole lot of time to focus on it.

The Publix was still in somewhat decent shape at least, it looked like it had been abandoned which made sense. A lot of the buildings were old, but the city could be in worse shape at least. Maybe that at least meant there would be food to get, I just had to hope.

The front doors of the Publix had been broken open, that figured I guess it meant I wasn't the first person to reach here, I just had to hope that there would be something inside.


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Inside the building it smelled funky, it actually reminded me a bit of the smell of a dog but it was even stronger than I remembered it, probably because of my enhanced sense of smell. Either that or because dogs hadn't exactly been bathing for awhile, it was hard to tell.

I took a moment to check my body again, yeah I was still a small horse, I even had what I assumed was equine, well, equipment. What was weird is that they felt a little more sensitive than I thought they would, did that mean something? Why did I feel like something was going on here that I didn't understand?

Thankfully there actually was food that wasn't completely rotten or eaten. I was lucky I guess, it meant I wasn't going to starve to death at least.

I thought about Jake, he had been in New York City when this happened and I had no idea what may have happened to him at all. The more I thought about it, the more I was worried about what might have happened to him, its not like I really had much of an option.

I was also starting to become more aware of the fact that I was naked, I mean I was walking around an empty city so its not like anyone was there to see my new equine parts. There weren't exactly a lot of options, but I had to at least consider the possibility of finding some clothes that would fit me somewhere in Atlanta.

Maybe if I could figure out how to use my new hooves I could get them modified at least, things were weird around here and I really had no idea what I was going to do.

Once I got enough food my next priority was going to be figuring out where I was going to wind up living now. I needed to consider getting out of the city proper, there were houses I could probably use or maybe if I could find a good place to stop at in the event that there was something out there that wanted to eat me or something.

I gathered up the food I could and settled in, I would have to keep searching around the city to figure out some way to move around without much problems.

I just had to hope I could.


00000


Three days passed, I managed to come across some old building supplies, and I had to figure out how to build anything with it right now. I kept trying to pick it up with my hooves but it just fell to the floor until I was so desperate I actually wished I could just pick it up with my mind.

That's when I saw it, an orange aura was wrapped around the hammer, I looked up at my horn and saw that it was glowing with the same aura.

I gasped and fell back, the shock of the discovery made the aura vanish and the hammer clattered to the floor. Had I actually done that? Was I moving it with some sort of telekinesis? That was insane, how was I doing this? Was it because I was a Unicorn?

I was starting to wonder more and more about my new body, it felt so, unnatural and weird. The sensitivity I had noticed before wasn't any better either, and I had started throwing up again, how was any of this even possible? I didn't even feel sick at this point other than throwing up, at least I didn't have any other symptoms.

Did horses come down with the flu? No wait, I had felt this way before and the flu wasn't even going around yet, that just raised more questions.

The fourth day was even better, I managed to make a rough wagon with a harness that I could use to pull it. I had done my best to get everything all together.

I still was having a hard time getting used to this new body, but right now I didn't have much of a choice but to at least try and get used to it. That sense I mentioned before was now even stronger, I was getting the feeling that it was more about my magic, maybe some sort of magical aura.

Though the weird thing was, I felt another one, not nearby but actually inside me. I didn't know what that might mean for ponies, but put together with everything else that was happening, there was only one thing it could mean.

I was pregnant.